Why did the baby toad cross the road?

It’s not a joke. It really happens in Philadelphia. Each summer, thousands of baby toads hop, hop, hop. They hop across a very busy street. The toads are trying to reach the woods on the other side. For a couple of years, they will live there, eating mosquitoes and growing up. Then, hop, hop, hop. Back they go to the other side.

Unless they get squashed by a car, that is. That’s where the Toad Detour project comes in.

Each year, volunteers gather on the days of greatest toad traffic. For a time, the road is blocked. Cars can’t get through. That gives the toads a chance to cross without croaking.

Kaitlyn Hunt is 17 years old. She came with a plastic cup to help. “I didn’t expect there would be so many of them,” she said. Her cup held about a dozen of the baby amphibians. Each was only about the size of a raisin.

The toads are not endangered—there are plenty of their kind on earth. But people still want to protect them. They are God’s creatures, and the mini-migration is an exciting natural event for some of these city dwellers.